I love having a Pokemon business overall. It’s not exactly about the money (well it is, otherwise the business wouldn’t run), but its the experience. I really love having my own business with me being in control of everything. It’s really just a VERY small scale business that dosen’t take much to run itself, but I do want to expand and try to at least make more than the little amount of money I’ve earned so far.
I love the pokemon business, and I one day want to start my own business. This is definitely one of the best first steps I’ve taken, and I think reaching out of my comfort zone should be the next one.
Good caveat to give, if you watch the video Dan gives tons of informational advice which is relevant to your comment and does warn others that these “plays” have tons of risk, especially if you end up just following what everyone else is doing.
PSA is streamlining the selling process. Now you can buy a card from your LGS, send it to PSA for grading, and get it listed on eBay immediately. For modern chase cards, that is probably your best bet.
For vintage, it’s a little more tricky. Very few people are selling ungraded mint or gem mint vintage chase cards nowadays. You’re more likely to get PSA 5-8 quality. Ask yourself, how many folks are shopping around for PSA 5-8 quality vintage cards <$100? Not many, I would guess.
There is definitely money to be made in grading vintage singles, but you need a lot of capital and knowledge. One popular option is buying undergraded PSA 6-9 cards, cracking, and sending them to CGC to hit the CGC 10 Gem Mint or Pristine grade. But it would require a lot of attention to detail, knowledge of the grading process, sheer luck, and startup capital to make it worth your time.
My ballpark estimate would be several hundred dollars at the minimum for grading and selling, and expect to make a few dozen dollars of profit after everything is said and done. The bigger money and higher profit margins will be in the more expensive cards and the higher grades.
I know that profit isn’t your only motivation here (you’re building exp points), so you might as well have fun with it while you are young. With that being said, it would be good to temper your expectations, as things can often go wrong with grading.
Most successful people I know in this hobby find the niche/strategy that works best for them and then build off of it. Usually it involves seeing opportunities where most others don’t.
For example, probably the only reason I have a complete PSA 9 1st edition wotc holo set is because I was buying most of them while people were offloading them at cost. But in Pokemon I’m better at spending money than making it . @gottaketchumall was doing the same thing at the time so he’s a better role model.
I have been buying cards on eBay and TCGplayer and using pokemonpricetracker to find what cards are first worth grading and how much i will have to spend and the chances to get good returns, you can kind of find a budget based on the raw card price and i really think anyone can start small.
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